Top 9 Reasons to Implement Automated PDF Testing in Your Workflow

When designing your app, it’s essential to consider how users will interact with PDF files.

Let's say you’re a software developer. You must ensure that your app works as expected when dealing with PDF files, both from a user experience perspective and a technical standpoint.

PDF testing validates that PDF documents are correctly rendered in the application, ensuring users have an optimal experience when interacting with them.

And automated PDF testing can help ensure that the functionality of your app is optimized and delivers a consistent, reliable experience for all your users.

This article will discuss the benefits of automation in your workflow and the top 9 reasons why automated PDF testing should be an essential part of your testing process.

What is Workflow Automation?

Workflow automation is a process of streamlining manual tasks by using software programs or scripts. This can include testing, data gathering, and input collecting, among other functions.

Automation enables the completion of mundane tasks quickly and efficiently with minimal human intervention.

The Importance of Workflow Automation

Manual testing is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to human error. It also requires a lot of resources and can become costly.

As applications become more complex, automating tests can reduce the amount of manual work required, saving money and time in the long run.

Automation is vital in software development because it helps optimize the process and minimize manual labor. This saves time and reduces the risk of human error on repetitive tasks.

It can help reduce costs while increasing productivity, accuracy, and efficiency. Automation also makes it easier to update processes as needed without having to rewrite a lot of code.

What Kind of Software Tests Can You Automate?

The advancement in technology enables you to automate various types of software tests, such as unit tests, integration tests, system tests, and performance tests.

Unit test automation involves running tests on the smallest individual components of an application to ensure they work as expected.

Integration tests involve testing how multiple components and functions interact with each other.

System tests are used to test the entire system in a controlled environment, while performance tests evaluate the speed and scalability of applications.

Automated PDF testing is also possible, where tests are created to ensure PDF documents are correctly rendered in the application.

However, PDF testing is one of the most important types of tests to automate. Automated PDF testing helps ensure that your application works correctly when dealing with PDFs.

PDFs are different from other documents because they are composed of text, images, audio, and video elements. Testing these elements to ensure that the PDFs can be rendered correctly in the application is essential.

Automated tests can validate that all components are correctly displayed and interact as expected with other parts of the application.

Automated Workflow Examples

Automated workflows can take several forms, from software automation to robotic process automation (RPA). Examples of automated workflows include:

• Automated software testing: Automated software testing tests a program's functionality and compares the results with expected outcomes. Such testing can be used for web applications, mobile apps, and PDF documents.

• RPA: Robotic process automation automates mundane tasks such as filling in forms, data entry, or other repetitive tasks.

• Document automation: This type of workflow automates document-related processes such as creating contracts or generating invoices.

• Workflow management: This automation helps manage organizational tasks and processes.

• Automated web scraping: This type of workflow automates the process of collecting data from web pages.

• Automated data collection: Automated data collection helps collect and analyze large volumes of data quickly and accurately.

• Automated input processing: Automated input processing helps to streamline the process of collecting user data by quickly and accurately capturing, storing, and analyzing it.

• Automated customer service and support processes: Automated customer service and support processes handle customer inquiries and provide them with helpful information.

Top Reasons to Implement PDF Testing in Your Workflow Automation

Automated PDF testing is part of workflow automation and has become increasingly important for developers. It enables teams to quickly identify issues with documents, optimize the user experience, and increase customer satisfaction.

Here are the top nine reasons why automated PDF testing should be part of your workflow automation strategy:

1. Ensure Consistent Viewer Experience:

Ensuring a consistent user experience when viewing PDF documents is essential for all applications. Automated testing can help identify any inconsistencies or display issues so they can be corrected quickly.

2. Verify Document Integrity:

Testing helps ensure that all the data within a document is intact and not corrupted by any errors or malicious code during a file transfer between systems.

3. Improve Product Quality:

Automated PDF testing helps in identifying any potential issues with documents before they become a problem, reducing the risk of errors and increasing product quality.

4. Increase Efficiency:

By automating PDF tests, developers can focus on more important tasks while saving time and resources on manual testing. This increases overall efficiency and productivity.

5. Reduce Testing Time:

Automated tests take less time than manual testing, enabling faster results and more efficient workflows.

6. Enable Collaboration:

By providing real-time feedback on automated PDF tests, teams can collaborate faster and more efficiently to identify problems quickly and resolve them before they become bigger issues.

7. Reduce the Risk of Human Error:

Manual testing is prone to human errors, but automation can help reduce the risk of mistakes while increasing accuracy and reliability.

8. Ensure Compliance with Regulations:

Automated PDF tests provide more reliable results, essential for compliance with industry standards and regulations regarding document management and security.

9. Improve User Satisfaction:

Automated PDF testing ensures that documents are rendered correctly in the application, providing users with an optimal experience when interacting with them. This helps to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Improve PDF Testing with Workflow Automation Software

In addition to the benefits of automated PDF testing, workflow automation software can help streamline and optimize your PDF testing process.

A workflow automation platform like Preflight enables you to create automated workflows in minutes without any coding experience. This helps to reduce manual labor while increasing productivity, accuracy, and efficiency.

Preflight provides a real-time dashboard to monitor and track PDF tests, helping you make informed decisions on how best to optimize your workflow.